Atlantic Fury (5 page)

‘Where were they taken?'

‘Famagusta in Cyprus.'

‘I've never been to Famagusta,' I said.

‘I asked you whether you recognised him.'

‘Well, I don't. Who is he?'

He sighed and took the photographs back, sitting there, staring down at them. ‘I guess they're not very clear. Not as clear as I would have liked. But …' He shook his head and tucked them away in the envelope together with the cuttings. ‘They're pictures I took of Braddock. Major Braddock.' He looked up at me. ‘You're sure they didn't strike some chord in your memory?' And when I shook my head, he said, ‘They didn't remind you of your brother, for instance?'

‘My brother?' I stared at him, trying to think back, remembering Iain's dark, handsome face. ‘How the hell could it be my brother?' The face in those photos, lined and scarred. ‘There's no resemblance at all. What are you getting at?'

‘Think what he'd be like now.' The small eyes stared at me, cold and with an obstinate look.

‘He's dead,' I said again, angry now, wondering what the hell this wretched little man was trying to dig up. ‘And the past, that's dead, too,' I added.

‘Okay, Mr Ross. If that's the way you feel. But do something for me, will you. Draw me a picture of your brother – as you think he might look now.'

‘Damned if I do.' I wasn't going to help him or anyone else rake up the past. ‘Why should I?'

‘I'll tell you why.' His voice had a sudden bite to it. ‘I don't believe the man I saw in Famagusta was Braddock.' The eyes, staring at me, still had that obstinate look. ‘And if he wasn't Braddock, then who was he? That's what I want to know, and that's what I intend to find out.' He dived into his breast pocket and came out with a diary. ‘I've got a list of five names.' He turned the pages quickly, spreading the diary open on his knee. ‘Five men definitely identified. That's in addition to Braddock and Leroux, the two who were still on the raft when it was washed ashore in the Outer Hebrides.' He looked up at me then. ‘That makes seven we know for sure were on the raft at the time the
Duart Castle
went down. No doubt there were more, but those seven have been identified by witnesses I consider absolutely reliable. Your brother was one of them, Mr Ross.'

I didn't see what he was driving at. Whether Iain was on that raft or in the water didn't seem to make much difference. It didn't alter the fact that he was dead. ‘Who told you?' I asked. ‘Braddock, I suppose.'

‘No, it wasn't Braddock. Braddock says he doesn't remember. What you might call a mental blackout, I guess. Very convenient. No, your brother's name was given to me by a man I saw in Lyons on my way back home from the Middle East – Tom Webster, an English textile buyer. He came ashore in one of the boats.' He closed the diary. ‘I've seen altogether eight of the survivors, in addition to Braddock. The first seven were Canadians, I interviewed them before I left for Europe. Only one of them remembered seeing the float. He gave me two possible names. Webster gave me a further three, and he was very positive about them because he was thrown into the water and clung to the float for a time before swimming to the boat.' He stubbed out his cigarette. ‘The three men Webster was positive about were the Master-at-Arms, the second officer – and your brother. I've checked on the first two. Neither of them had any reason to change their identity. But your brother had. Did you know he was being brought back from Canada under escort to face a number of very serious charges?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I know that. But he's listed among those lost and it's over twenty years …'

‘He was presumed dead.' His emphasis was on the word ‘presumed', his voice flat and hard and very determined. ‘There's a difference. His body was never recovered. He wasn't identified. And that brings me to the reason I'm here. The
Duart Castle
was a troopship. Most of the boys sailing in her were young Canadian conscripts. A hundred and thirty-six of them were officers, newly commissioned, Braddock was one of them.' And he went on to tell me Braddock's story.

I wanted to throw the man out. This monstrous, fantastic suggestion of his … But he went on talking – talking in that flat Canadian monotone. It was like a river in spate and I listened to it because I couldn't help myself, because the seed of doubt had been sown and curiosity is a universal failing.

Braddock had been born in London. His father was English, his mother Canadian. When he was two the family had moved to Vancouver. That was in 1927. In 1938 they had returned to England, the father having been appointed London representative of the Canadian firm he worked for. On the outbreak of war a year later, George Braddock, then a boy of fourteen and their only child, had been evacuated to Canada. For the next four years he'd lived with his aunt, a Mrs Evelyn Gage, on a ranch in northern B.C. ‘A lonely sort of place out on the old Caribou Trail,' Lane added. ‘And Evie had just lost her husband. She was alone there except for the stockman. She'd no children of her own and … well, I guess it's the old story. She came to regard young George Braddock more or less as her own son, particularly after his parents were killed. They died in the bombing – a direct hit on their flat. Now this is where I come into it. When the boy went off to join the Army she made a Will leaving everything to him “in love and affection for the boy who was like a son to me” – those are the actual Words. She died last year, aged seventy-two and that Will still stands. She never made another.'

‘And you're trying to break it?' Money, I thought – this smooth-faced, hard-eyed little man's whole life was money.

‘Well, wouldn't you? Evie was my wife's aunt, too – by marriage; and the ranch alone is worth a hundred thousand dollars. And the boy never wrote to her, you see. All that time. It's taken lawyers six months to trace the guy. They thought at first he was dead.'

So that was it. Because the fellow hadn't written … ‘It doesn't occur to you, I suppose, that Braddock might not be interested in a ranch in Canada.'

‘There's more to it than the ranch – around a quarter of a million dollars.' He gave me a tight little smile. ‘You show me the man who'll turn down that sort of money. Unless there's some very good reason. And in Braddock's case I'm convinced there is. He's scared of it.' He got to his feet. ‘Now then. You draw me a portrait of your brother and then I'll leave you. Draw it as you think he'd look now. Okay?'

I hesitated, my mind a confused mixture of thoughts.

‘I'll pay you for it.' He pulled out his pocket book. ‘How much?'

I damn near hit him then. What with his suspicions, the stupid allegations he'd made, and then offering me a bribe. ‘Fifty dollars,' I heard myself say and even then I didn't realise why I'd decided to take his money.

I thought for a moment he was going to haggle over it. But he stopped himself in time. ‘Okay, fifty it is.' He counted five ten-dollar bills on to the table. ‘You're a professional. I guess you're entitled to your fee.' It was as though he were excusing himself for being too open-handed.

But when I came to draw it, I found it wasn't so easy. I started the first rough in black with a brush, but it was too strong a medium; you need to have your subject clear in front of your eyes. And when I switched to pen-and-ink it required too much detail. In the end I used an ordinary pencil, and all the time he stood over me, breathing down my neck. He was a chain-smoker and his quick panting breath made it difficult to concentrate. I suppose he thought he'd be more likely to get his money's worth if he watched every pencil stroke, or maybe it just fascinated him to see the picture emerge. But my mind, going back, searching for the likeness I couldn't quite capture, resented it.

It didn't take me long to realise that time had coloured my memory. Iain's features had become blurred and in that first rough I was emphasising what I wanted to remember, discarding what I didn't. I scrapped it and started again. And halfway through something happened – it began to take on a vague, shadowy likeness to the man in those photographs. I tore that sheet up, too. But when I tried again the same thing happened – something in the shape of the head, the way the hair grew down towards the forehead, the lines round mouth and eyes, the eyes themselves, particularly the eyes. A pity he'd shown me those photographs. I screwed the sheet up into a ball and threw it in the wastepaper basket. ‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I thought I could remember him. But I can't. Not clearly enough to draw you a true likeness.' And I picked up the fifty dollars and thrust the notes back into his hand. ‘I can't help you, I'm afraid.'

‘You mean you won't.'

‘Have it your own way,' I said. I wanted to get rid of him, to be alone with time to think, and I thrust my hands in my pockets, for I knew they were shaking.
Donald my Donald
. How Iain's voice came back to me down the years – cruel and charming, gay and sombre, that queer Celtic mixture. And Laerg of our imagination that was like a Shangri-la, like a talisman – but still one thing to him, another to me.
If I go to Laerg it will be to die. Aye, Donald my Donald – death to me and life to you
. A quarter of a century and I could remember the words, still hear his voice slurred with drink in that dirty little pub. And his face, lined already, sodden that night … ‘I'm sorry,' I said again. ‘I can't do it.' And I opened the door for him, anxious to be rid of the man.

He paused, staring at me hard. ‘Okay,' he said finally in that flat voice of his. I thought he was going then, but he paused in the doorway. ‘If you should want to contact Braddock he's in this country.'

‘I thought you said he was in Cyprus.'

‘That's where I saw him on my way through to the Middle East. But he was due for leave. Now he's been posted to the Hebrides.' I didn't say anything and he added, ‘You'll find him at the Guided Weapons Establishment on Harris. Just thought you'd like to know.' He was starting down the stairs when I asked him how he'd found out. ‘Private inquiry agent. They've been keeping an eye on him for me.' He smiled. ‘Odd, isn't it? Why should this guy Braddock get posted to the Hebrides now? And another thing, Mr. Ross. I know why you wouldn't complete that drawing. I was watching your face.' He pulled his hand out of his pocket. ‘I guess I'll leave these here.' He placed the dollar bills on the top step of the stairs. ‘Tear them up if you like. But before you do, remember they'll just about cover your fare to the Hebrides.' And with that he left me, standing there listening to his footsteps descending the bare boards, staring down at those damned dollars.

And I thought I'd covered up. How many times in the past had I covered up for Iain when he'd acted on the spur of the moment without thought of the future? Father, the police, that poor little idiot Mavis … I reached down and picked up the dollar bills, feeling like Judas. But I had to know. A brother is still your brother – hate and love, the old hero-worship still there, dormant, but leaving a vacuum. And I'd no one else. No one in the world I'd really cared for. I had to know.

PART TWO

DISASTER

CHAPTER ONE

GUIDED WEAPONS HQ

(October 16–19)

I left for the north the following day; the night train to Mallaig, the steamer to Rodil in the extreme south of Harris. And all the way there thinking of Iain – Iain and Braddock. The rattle of the wheels, the thump of the screws; their names pounding at my brain, till the two were one. And that Canadian … walking up the street to the bus stop there'd been a man in an old raincoat; he'd been on the bus with me and I'd seen him at King's Cross, just behind me waiting to get his ticket. Coincidence perhaps, but if I'd been Lane … I pictured him sitting by the telephone in some London hotel waiting for a report, smiling gently to himself when he was told I'd left for the north. Well, to hell with that. It was natural, wasn't it – that I should want to be sure?

I'd finished that jacket design in two hours flat and Alec Robinson had liked it sufficiently to pay me cash. Fifteen guineas. It had made all the difference. Camping out I could manage for a time and I had my return ticket. Something else I'd got from Robinson, too – an introduction to Cliff Morgan, a meteorologist working at Northton five miles north of Rodil. I'd done the jacket for his book,
Airman's Weather
. It was a contact at any rate and Robinson had told me that Northton was where the Guided Weapons Establishment was.

I'd never been farther north than Ardnamurchan and all up through the islands, through the Sounds of Sleat and Raasay, I was conscious of the growing sense of familiarity, a feeling almost of contentment. The sea and the islands, and the great canopy of the sky – it called to me and my spirit sang with the smell of the salt sea air and the cold wind on my face. And then the mountains of Harris, rising abruptly from the rim of the sea, piled against a leaden sky, their tops blurred by a rainstorm. Rodil proved to be nothing but a hotel and a grass-grown quay falling into decay with an old stone church on the hill behind, built on the pattern of Iona. The boatman, ferrying us from the ship to the quay, looked at my tent and said, ‘If they've nae room up yonder, I could fix ye a bed maybe.' His voice was soft as the rain that was beginning to fall and when I declined his offer, he said, ‘Och weel, it's yer ain business. But it'll be a tur-rible wet night I'm thinking.'

The night was both wet and cold and I went to sleep with the sound of the waves sloshing among the seaweed that clothed the rocks, and in the morning I started to walk to Northton. Just beyond the church a girl in a small estate car stopped and offered me a lift. She wore a faded green anorak with the hood pushed back and her face had the freshness of the islands; a dark, wind-browned face and bright blue eyes. ‘You must have had a very uncomfortable night,' she said as we drove up the glen. Her voice was soft and that, too, belonged to the islands. ‘Why didn't you come to the hotel?' Something about the way she said it, the quick, almost hostile glance she gave me – it was almost as though she resented the presence of a stranger.